Traffic jams cost the UK £8bn last year

Traffic jams cost UK motorists £7.9 billion last year – an average of £1,317 per driver.

Motorists in London lost 227 hours due to congestion, making it the most congested city in the country, followed by Birmingham residents who wasted 134 hours in traffic, and Glaswegians who lost 99.

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In terms of amount of money lost per driver, London was still the number one ranking, with £1,680 lost per driver on average. Edinburgh was second with £1,219 and Manchester third on £1,157.

The analysis comes from the traffic experts at Inrix, who calculated time lost in congestion by employing peak, off-peak and free flow data from different times of day.

London and Edinburgh also earned the joint first place title of slowest city in the UK, both with last-mile speeds (calculated from the last mile of intercity journeys) of 7mph.

The A406 from Chiswick Roundabout to Hanger Lane was the most congested corridor in the UK last year, with the average drivers using it wasting 61 hours in traffic. The A23 from Kennington to Thornton Road was second with an annual delay of 56 hours, followed by Kingsway/Strand/Fleet/Cannon Street from Russell Square to Monument on 49 hours.

Worst corridors are limited to those that have the highest traffic volume and are ranked by the average hours of delay per driver in 2018

Impact ranking

Urban area

Average hours lost per driver in 2018

Year-on-year change

Last mile travel time (minutes)

Last mile travel time

Cost of congestion per driver

1

London

227

1%

8

7mph

£1,680

2

Birmingham

134

-4%

5

12mph

£994

3

Glasgow

99

4%

6

13mph

£736

4

Manchester

156

2%

6

10mph

£1,157

5

Bristol

149

0%

8

8mph

£1,099

6

Edinburgh

165

10%

8

7mph

£1,219

7

Sheffield

149

1%

6

10mph

£1,101

8

Leicester

155

-4%

6

11mph

£1,145

9

Leeds

143

6%

5

12mph

£1,057

10

Liverpool

119

-16%

6

9mph

£878

In terms of global rankings, Moscow was the most congested city in the world last year, followed by Istanbul and Bogota. Meanwhile, London ranked sixth place.

Inrix - an automotive and transportation software company - drew on anonymous GPS data from over 300 million “connected cars and devices”, including iPhones and Android devices, and as Sync infotainment systems in Fords, to calculate the amount of time drivers wasted in traffic in 2018.

How much time do you think you waste a year sitting in traffic? Tell us in the comments below...